Books

New York: Printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis - for Furman & Loudon, 1801.. 392pp. plus frontispiece portrait and folding table. Folding map. With the folding plate of the Natural Bridge of Virginia supplied in facsimile. Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked with gilt spine laid down, gilt morocco label. Boards slightly rubbed. Lightly tanned and foxed. Very good. In a folding cloth box, leather label. The self-styled "third American edition," although the statement to that effect has been effaced from the titlepage. There were actually five American editions published before this one. NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA is the only book-length work by Jefferson to be published in his lifetime. It has been called "one of America's first permanent literary and intellectual landmarks." It was largely written in 1781 and first published in Paris, in French, in 1785. Written in the form of answers to questions about Virginia, the book supplies a description of the geography, with an abundance of…